Help My Father Dr. Zhicheng Hu Come Home

My father, Dr. Zhicheng Hu, is an award-winning Chinese-American engineer whose work focuses on automobile emission control; he is listed as an inventor of 48 US, European and World patents. In November 2008, the Tianjin Police detained him while he was on a business trip to China after a competitor in Dagang-District, Tianjin, China accused him of “stealing technology.” In April 2010, Tianjin City Prosecutor’s office and Tianjin Court jointly withdrew the case against him and my father was freed without charge after 17 months of detention. Despite this, Tianjin Police continued the border control that prevents him from coming home to the United States without giving any reason.

On November 10, 2011, two months after this petition began and 19 months after my father was freed without charge, the Tianjin police finally lifted the border control. However, on same day, the Tianjin 2nd Intermediate Court placed my father under border control again, claiming that his competitor filed a civil suit against him on that day. My father paid the full amount requested to the court as collateral and asked the court to lift the border control. Then he was told that the competitor had withdrawn the civil suit and filed another one for the same matter, but this time asking for five times the amount of money. The "evidence" used by the competitor in this civil case is the same as that used in the prior criminal case. Their "key evidence" consisted of technical evaluations illegally concocted by an agency, which has been banned since 2008 due to perjury. Chinese law requires a civil case like this to be concluded within six months, which have long passed; however, the court continues to delay the conclusion and it has resulted in more suffering for our family.

My father has been separated from our family for more than four years due to this incident; in 2011, he underwent major surgery to fix an injury that he sustained during his detention. I was sixteen when we first learned of my father’s detainment. My world has changed a lot since then. My younger brother has been forced to grow up without a father for the past four years. My mother spent all of her energy trying to bring my father home and the stress has had a devastating effect on her health. We have tried many options, to no avail. Please, sign the petition and help us convince the Tianjin city government to lift the border control and let my father come home! Thank you!